Some Adages Worthy of Consideration

Argumentum Ad Hitlerum - Note: I consider the use of Adolph Hitler in a contemporary affairs analogy as an implicit forfeit in any debate. At the very least, by default the debate is over. Another note: As a consequence of the frustration, if not desperation, of internet discussion, Godwin's Law is in fact true.

Clarke's Third Law - Note: I prefer to say, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is practically indistinguishable from a miracle."

Q's 1st Law: The result of human endeavor is almost always the opposite of it's goal.

Q's Corollary (to the only known exception to Q's 1st Law): Change by conscious decision almost never results in a net change in overall happiness. (The only exception to this corollary is death, which is really only a technicality).

Some People I Know and Like

What I do

The Best Chili

What is a "State"?

"A state is defined conventionally as an agency that exercises a compulsory territorial
monopoly of ultimate decison-making (jurisdiction) and of taxation. By definition then,
every state, regardless of its particular constitution, is economically and ethically
deficient. Every monopolist is 'bad' from the viewpoint of consumers. Monopoly is hereby
understood as the absence of free entry into a particular line of production: only one
agency, A, may produce X.

Any monopoly is 'bad' for consumers because, shielded from potential new entrants into
its line of production, the price for its product will be higher and the quality lower than
with free entry. And a monopolist with ultimate decison-making powers is particularly bad.
While other monopolists produce inferior goods, a monopolist judge, besides producing
inferior goods, will produce bads, because he who is the ultimate judge in every case of
conflict also has the last word in each conflict involving himself. Consequently, instead
of preventing and resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision-making will cause
and provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage.

Not only would no one accept such a monopoly judge provision, but no one would ever
agree to a provision that allowed this judge to determine the price to be paid for his
'service' unilaterally. Predictably, such a monopolist would use up ever more resources
(tax revenue) to produce fewer goods and perpetrate more bads. This is not a prescription
for protection but for oppression and exploitation. The result of a state, then, is not
peaceful cooperation and social order, but conflict, provocation, aggression, oppression,
and impoverishment, i.e., de-civilization. This, above all, is what the history of states
illustrates. It is first and foremost the history of countless millions of innocent state
victims."